Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind the source for blindness news and information since 1907

About a week ago, I received a letter from a vendor I had purchased from informing me that their servers were hacked and a lot of information was stolen, including sensitive credit card information from all customers who made purchases between September and November. As you can probably guess, I had made purchases during that time and my information was out in the ether, probably available to the highest bidder on the virtual black market. I immediately checked my bank statements again to make sure that there weren’t any fraudulent charges and luckily everything looked fine. As a precaution, though, I went to my bank, told them about the letter I received, and asked to have my current ATM-Debit card cancelled and to be issued a new one.

In the past three years, I’ve had to do this twice due to these issues, and I imagine that I will be forced to do the same in the near future as these problems become more prevalent. The thieves of the future will not be stealing at gun-point, but with advanced algorithms that take advantage of weaknesses in virtual security setups.

So what do we do to protect ourselves? In cases like the one I’ve recently dealt with, there really isn’t too much that can be done–at least on the part of the consumer. Companies need to evolve along with the new criminal methods to make sure that their customers can be protected. For the most part, they’re doing a decent job, but there is no time to sit back on their laurels. They need to constantly monitor themselves and make their security stronger.

Where we can protect ourselves are at places like ATMs and online vendors. ATM machines have become new targets for thieves who use devices called card skimmers. These devices act as an overlay for the slot where you slide in your card and skim the magnetic strip on the back before it goes into the machine. A small pinhole camera installed in the overlay takes a video of your pin number, and the innards of a cell phone that have been squeezed inside send that information wirelessly anywhere in the world. The criminals who install these skimmers have gotten increasingly smart and can produce very accurate overlays that can even fool the banks who maintain the machines. The best way to avoid this type of fraud is to either go into the bank and get your cash from a teller, or get your cash when you shop at stores that offer cash back on debit purchases. The latter is also a great way to avoid ATM fees as well.

As for online purchases, only make purchases from verified vendors who have a good reputation. If possible, call them to make your purchases rather than entering your information on their website if you’re unsure.

While there are now risks that exist that we didn’t have to worry about before, there are ways we can protect ourselves against them to minimize how exposed we are to those risks. Quick action when fraud is caught is crucial, so if you think that something is wrong, call your bank right away.

Shop safe, shop smart, and have fun.

It’s an unfortunate fact, but roughly 13 percent of all veterans returning home from Iraq or Afghanistan have suffered from eye-related injuries that have left them blind. Now Serotek, a company many of you are familiar with, is stepping forward to help out our brave soldiers who have a new struggle to overcome.

Serotek’s popular SAMNet service, which allows users access to an amazing internet portal filled with material available to the blind, will now be made available for free to blind veterans. Any legally blind veteran will be eligible for a lifetime subscription to this service starting December 15, 2011 when this new initiative kicks off.

“For many veterans sight loss is a new battleground,” remarked Serotek CEO Mike Calvo. By offering this wonderful service to them for free, Calvo hopes that they will be given all of the tools that they’ll need to maintain the same confidence they carried when they served our country.

In addition to opening up SAMNet for free to all veterans who qualify, they are also adding a bunch of different services as well. These include chat rooms, forums, and other communication channels geared towards veterans as well as the general public who utilize the SAMNet service. They hope that these new features will greatly increase the amount of communication channels within the blind community and allow individuals to reach out and connect with others.

Showing appreciation to all veterans who have come back home is incredibly important. By also providing services for those who have come back wounded, Serotek is reaching out to help a new segment of blind Americans who have to learn how to live with both the memories of battle and the physical scars that occasionally accompany them. Hopefully, with help from Serotek and their SAMNet network, our soldiers will be able to be able to heal and adjust to their new lives as quickly as possible.

For more information on Serotek or SAMNet, you can visit www.serotek.com

On October 4, I watched a live blog as Apple introduced its newest iteration of the iPhone. While many were expecting a completely redesigned iPhone 5, what we’ve been given is an iPhone 4 on steroids–dubbed the iPhone 4S. The shape of the phone remains unchanged, but it is sporting some nice software upgrades. The most notable is something called Siri, which I’ll explain in more detail in a minute. While this new phone didn’t necessarily wow the tech world–who were waiting for some incredible new device–the impact of this most recent Apple Update Event could be large within the blind and visually impaired community.

First, with the newest iPhone 4S coming out next week, pricing has dropped drastically on the older models. While the new 4S will start at $200, the standard iPhone 4 will now be $100 with a two year contract. But the biggest news is that the iPhone 3G will now be free with a two year contract. While the 3G model isn’t the latest and greatest, it is still an amazing device that will continue to be supported by Apple. For any of you who have been on the fence about buying a smart phone, now might be the best time to do it. As multiple writers have said here in the past, while there is a learning curve involved, the voice-over software on the iPhone makes it the most accessible smart phone choice out there.

Now, onto the newest upgrade–Siri. Siri, as it was explained, is going to be your humble personal assistant. Available only on the newest iPhone 4S, Siri is able to listen to a host of voice commands and respond in turn. What is so remarkably different about Siri, though, is its ability to understand commands in normal speech. Instead of saying, “Call Dad’s Mobile,” you can say, “Can you give my Dad a call?” More than that, it can handle voice-to-text as well, so saying, “Text Bill and let him know that I’ll be a few minutes late” will result in a text message to Bill alerting him of your delay exactly how you spoke it. When creating a text message, Siri will compose it and read it back to you, giving you the opportunity to edit the message or simply say, “Send.”

Siri goes way beyond calls and text messages, though. If you ask, “How is the weather going to be today?” Siri will read you the forecast. You don’t even have to talk that official. You can simply say, “Will it be chilly out today?” and Siri will tell you something like, “No, not really. The high for today should be around 76 degrees.”

The potential for software like this is incredible, because it creates a communication bridge between you and your phone without the need to see or touch anything. In a way, it even makes voice-over moot. I’ve spoken before about how the future of technology for the blind will be drastically improved, and available at a much lower cost, when there is mutual use for both the blind and the sighted. Siri is a massive leap forward in that direction, and its implications, should it work properly, are huge.

As with most services available today–from banking to grocery shopping–higher learning is also available online. As a result, students can access their classrooms from anywhere in the world, allowing them to fit their education into their schedule. However, this is not a service that only benefits the students, as disabled professors are finding that teaching their courses online has allowed them to educate much more efficiently.

Two professors involved in the University of North Carolina Greensboro Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Sciences online degree completion program are helping to pave the way. Douglas McCarty, Ph.D. is deaf, but his students have no idea that he lives without his sense of hearing. Each of his classes are highly interactive, done entirely over the internet, and supplemented with email and individual chat sessions. As students continue to progress through his course, he is able to constantly interact and give feedback and track their accomplishments as they move through the material. “I’ve taught face-to-face, and the main challenge has been lip reading quickly enough to student responses,” he said. With the online courses, he can clearly see what they’ve written and respond in real-time with no issues.

Another professor, Ann Millett-Gallant, Ph.D., was born with physical impairments and has prosthetic legs and uses a mobility scooter to get around. While navigating her way through campuses was frustrating at times, she can now teach her courses from home. Among other things, she is an expert on disability and its portrayal in contemporary art and uses her own experiences as a way to connect to the works she studies and her students. The online course also allows her to teach world-wide. “I have students from all over the world, which makes the discussions diverse and lively” she said.

The university is very pleased with the successes of their online program thus far. “We can offer broader learning opportunities to students and teaching opportunities to professors, regardless of where they are based,” said Robert Brown, dean of the UNCG Division of Continued Learning.

Online learning has always seemed like a great way to get an education if a student needs to work around a busy schedule. It also allows students to access programs that they would otherwise never be able to consider due to their distance from those schools. But the fact that these programs benefit disabled professors as well makes them all the more ideal. Hopefully, as more universities make their courses available online they will also reach out to disabled professors to teach those courses and allow them to continue comfortably in a career that they are passionate about.
Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/9/prweb8786056.htm

With all of the talks concerning budgets and financial planning, few people have really paid attention to one major government entity that is seriously hurting–the postal service. With a deficit now approaching $10 billion this fiscal year, the future of snail mail in America isn’t looking too good. So what happened?

In a word–technology. New technology like email, document scanning, online services like PayPal for money transfers (even gift giving), have all served as a very convenient, quick–and moreover, cheaper–alternative to sending things through the mail. The US Postal service, with its increased labor costs and its reduced revenue is quickly beginning to realize their dire situation and is scrambling to come up with a solution before they go the way of the dodo.

Their first option, which has been discussed for about a year, was to eliminate Saturday mail service. Now, with even scarier numbers staring them in the face, they’re planning to do that, as well as close up to 3,700 post offices and lay off roughly 120,000 workers. In a time with jobs already in trouble, this would have a terrible impact on the lives of all of those employees.

The postal service needs to think hard and quickly to devise a way to compete with all of these alternatives. They’ve offered new programs like flat-rate shipping, which had been mildly successful with individuals and small businesses, but has been met with fierce competition from companies like UPS and FedEx, who have a stronghold on most of our domestic shipping needs and less expensive labor costs.

What are your thoughts about the current situation with the postal service? Would the elimination of Saturday mail have an impact on your life? What about if your local post office closed? If things get even worse and they deliver mail only a few times during the week, would you be upset?
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5837512/the-post-office-is-dying-because-we-dont-need-it-anymore

They say it never hurts to ask–and it seems that saying still holds true.

14 year old Matthew James was born without a left hand. In an effort to seek funding for a prosthetic one, he sent a witty letter to the head of the Mercedes Benz F1 team asking for just shy of $60,000 to make that possible. In return, Matthew offered up space on the proposed hand for sponsorship–allowing Mercedes to place their logo on it much like they do on their F1 cars.

But what seemed like a long shot to him and his family ending up touching the powers that be at Mercedes F1 so much that they not only agreed to help him, but also teamed up with the firm Touch Bionics, one of the premier hi-tech artificial limb makers in the world. What came out of their partnership is the i-LIMB Pulse, the most advanced prosthetic limb on Earth.

The hand, as you would expect, is a marvel of engineering. Constructed of high-grade plastic with a black silicone socket, it “plugs in” to Matthew’s arm. Electrodes on the inside of the socket detect electrical impulses from muscles in the base of his arm. Those signals are then beamed to a mini computer in the palm of the hand which then translates those messages into movements so accurately that it mimics the motions of a real hand. Each finger is controlled by a separate motor which allows them to move independently and it even has Bluetooth, so he can connect it to a computer and track the strength and speed of his movements. The i-LIMB Pulse is so versatile that he can grip a pen to write and draw, tie his shoe laces, and catch a ball.

“It is just amazing,” Matthew said, as he related to reporters that his old artificial hand was a very basic mechanical clamp. “It’s going to make such a big difference in my life.” Though the 14 year old revealed a maturity well beyond his age, the kid did come out in him. “It also looks really cool,” he said. “The outer shell is see-through so you can actually see the mechanics working.”

Mercedes was not able to pay for the hand outright, but agreed to help Matthew raise the money by asking for donations from fans and sponsors. For their part, Touch Bionics also agreed to fit the hand and train Matthew in its use at their state-of-the-art facilities for free, which would have otherwise cost another $40,000.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/8700621/F1-fan-receives-bionic-hand-from-Mercedes-team.html

As part of a program designed to provide educational travel for students, 15 year old Rory Dunn was one of five students chosen to guide blind hikers through the Grand Canyon. Both the guides and the visually impaired students ranged in age from 14 to 21 years old and traveled from across the country to experience the hike.

As Rory looked back on his experience, he remarked that it was very necessary to be as descriptive as possible during the hike. “You can’t just call a cliff ‘massive,’” Rory said. “The blind students want to know how many feet it is, its colors and the kind of trees that are growing on it.”

Aside from describing the view in front of them, Rory also had to make sure that they were able to safely navigate the terrain. Each guide was required to have bells on their backpack so that the hikers could orient themselves in the direction of the guide. Though, Rory said that he removed his bells because the students preferred to hear what he was saying rather than the constant ringing of the bell. “It gets kind of grating after a while,” he said.

Without the bells, though, he had to alert them of any dangers. As he guided his hikers, Rory would warn them about large rocks, which he called “ankle rollers,” and low branches, which he called “head hunters.” Though, he was concerned that he was warning them too often about non-threatening obstacles. He was very overprotective of the students, and said, “I almost went too overboard with the amount of help I provided.” Rory quickly learned that by using their trekking poles or canes, the blind students had no problem making their way behind them. “They’re quite remarkable,” he commented.

Overall, the final hike that Rory led the students on took ten hours and covered seven miles. The temperature was 107 degrees. As he reflected on his trip with the blind students, he said that “It’s very humbling being among people that are so energetic and so ready to go places even when they have such a serious disadvantage.”

Programs like this are important for both the sighted student guides and the visually impaired student hikers. For the guides, it shows them the abilities of the visually impaired in situations that they may not have ever believed they’d be able to operate. For the blind students, it gives them more confidence when they know that they can finish a hike that some sighted people would have difficulty with. It’s truly a situation where everyone wins.
Source: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2011/082011/08012011/642012/index_html?page=1

It’s been brought up in this magazine before that electric cars may be so quiet when running that they may be undetectable to a visually impaired pedestrian. While this sentiment was held as a truth, tests have now been done to confirm its validity, and with predictable conflicting results.
With gas prices as high as they are, electric cars are becoming more and more attractive to drivers looking to save some money, especially drivers in a city environment. Without a classic gasoline or diesel motor, there is no combustion or exhaust noise, making the electric cars supposedly quieter by comparison. This is something that has worried advocacy groups in many countries and has led to, in some cases, legislation requiring electric cars to produce some sort of prominent audible noise while operating.
So, as a result, studies have been performed to see just how quiet these new electric cars are. In one experiment, the noises generated by cars with gasoline and electric engines were compared as they performed multiple maneuvers at varying speeds. The study shows that at low speed–roughly 5 miles per hour–electric cars are only one decibel quieter than their gasoline counterparts. When speeds increased to about 12 miles per hour, they sounded nearly identical–with both exhibiting prominent tire noise. With this study, they concluded that there was not any significant noise difference between the two to suggest that a pedestrian would be able to clearly differentiate between the two types of vehicles.
In another test, though, ten visually impaired participants were asked to listen to audio recordings–to simulate them standing on a curb at an intersection–to see when they could hear the electric vehicle. They found that in semi-rural areas, the risk posed by electric cars was 1.4 times greater than conventional cars and 1.3 times greater in urban areas. Across the board, they found that electric cars were much more difficult to detect when pulling away from a stop.
The Department of Transport’s main concern is protecting the public from hazards, but currently, even though electric cars may pose a potential risk, there are still so few people with electric cars that any sort of regulatory action will surely be delayed.
What are your thoughts about electric cars and what, if any, regulatory action needs to take place to protect visually impaired citizens? Do you think more testing needs to be done to come to a concrete conclusion? Let us know in the Reader’s Forum.
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/quiet-electric-cars-pose-no-danger-to-visually-impaired-2319557.html

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had your flight delayed at the airport. Keep it raised if you’ve ever had your flight cancelled, and were forced to spend even more time in the terminal.
For those of you who have experienced this, you know all too well that the airport is hardly a place worthy of spending your time in. They’re mainly filled with fast food kiosks and newsstands, though some have upgraded to almost obscene, outlet mall-type levels–I’m looking at you, Orlando. But imagine staying in an airport for 80 days straight, unable to leave.
As much of a nightmare as that may seem, it’s actually a lucrative business offer on the table at Vancouver International Airport. The airport turns 80 years old this month, and to celebrate, they decided to try out a little social media experiment where one lucky contest winner (Canadian residents only) will stay in the airport for 80 days and create “short daily videos, post updates on Facebook and Twitter, and provide other reports about their experience.”
For someone who enjoys a healthy dose of people watching, this task should be a fun experience for them. The airport, which is situated on an island, will see almost 17 million passengers pass through its corridors this year and is a workplace for more than 23,000 people.
The person chosen for this unconventional role will also be given access to the behind-the-scenes aspects of the airport as well. That includes finding out what happens to everything from fresh fruit to lost luggage.
While they will not be able to leave their island airport, they will be taken care of during their stay. They will be paid fifteen thousand dollars for this job, as well as a daily stipend for meals and necessities, video and editing equipment, and a room at the airport hotel, the Fairmont Vancouver, which overlooks the runway. The island itself also has many amenities like beaches, parks, and bike paths.
As crazy as this whole idea sounds, fifteen thousand dollars for 80 days worth of work is a really good deal. All of your expenses are paid, too. So what do you think? Would you ever consider doing this?
Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/28/6967535-stuck-at-the-airport-for-80-days

I’m a sucker for statistics, especially when the information provided really paints a vivid picture. In this case, I’ve come across an interesting study done to give the amount of data that humans will create this year some sort of context.
The amount I’m talking about is simply huge and is measured in zettabytes. Now, a zettabyte means next to nothing on its own because it’s a number that’s so imperceptivity large. It’s like trying to conceptualize distance through space in light years. For reference, a zettabyte is equal to one billion terabytes. One terabyte is equal to one thousand gigabytes. To add even more scale, the hard drives in most personal computers are probably, on average, about 250 gigabytes in size.
Now that zettabytes have been defined, take into account that in this year alone, humans will create roughly 1.8 zettabytes of data. What follows is an effort to give that gargantuan number some kind of context.
To reach 1.8 zettabytes of data, every single person in the United States would have to produce 3 tweets on Twitter per minute, non-stop, for 26,976 years. It’s also the equivalent of 200 billion HD movies, each 120 minutes long. It would take one person–watching 24 hours a day, seven days a week–47 million years to watch every one of those movies.
Moving on to the storage sizes of popular devices, it would require 57.5 billion iPads with a 32 gigabyte hard drive to store all of that data. With that many iPads, you could build a mountain roughly 94,400 meters tall–25 times larger than Mount Fuji. Those iPads would also cost about $34.4 trillion dollars, the equivalent of the GDP of the United States, Japan, China, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy combined.
So, to sum it up, we produce a ridiculous amount of information. It also makes you feel rather small in the grand scheme of things. Just think; every weekly edition of this magazine combined would be like a period in one book against all of the text present in the Library of Congress.
To take all of the things you produce in a given year and realize it’s just a drop of water in the ocean gives true meaning to how big our world really is.
Source: http://mashable.com/2011/06/28/data-infographic/